GCash, Maya, or Your Bank: Which InstaPay/PESONet Transfer Is Actually Free in the Philippines? (2026 BSP Fee Guide)

Sulit verdict: As of November 2026, it’s worth a second look before you tap send. A years-long freeze on InstaPay and PESONet transfer fees ended in mid-2026 under BSP Circular No. 1238 — and the shake-up cut both ways. Several of the banks you probably already have an account with (BPI, Landbank, Metrobank, PNB, UnionBank, Security Bank) now do both InstaPay and PESONet transfers completely free, while GCash and Maya — free for years — now charge ₱10 per bank transfer. The old “just use GCash, it’s free” rule of thumb isn’t automatically true anymore, and with 13th month pay, aguinaldo, and Christmas budgets about to move through everyone’s accounts this quarter, picking the right channel can save you real pesos without changing a single spending habit.

For most of the 2020s, sending money through InstaPay or PESONet in the Philippines meant one of two experiences: your bank charged you anywhere from ₱10 to ₱50 per transfer, or you used GCash or Maya and paid nothing at all. That free ride from the e-wallets lasted long enough that an entire generation of habits got built around it — splitting rent through GCash, receiving freelance payments through Maya, pooling money for a relative’s hospital bill through whichever app the group chat agreed on.

That arrangement changed starting the first week of July 2026. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas lifted a long-standing moratorium that had kept InstaPay and PESONet fees frozen, and told banks and e-money issuers to reprice based on actual cost rather than habit. Some providers used the opening to finally drop fees to zero. Others — including the two biggest e-wallets most Filipinos use every day — introduced a fee where there used to be none. Here’s what actually changed, who it affects, and which channel is still the cheapest for whatever you’re sending this Ber season.

What Actually Changed in 2026

On June 17, 2026, the BSP’s Monetary Board issued Memorandum No. M-2026-025, lifting the moratorium that had frozen InstaPay and PESONet pricing for years. That memorandum implemented BSP Circular No. 1238, which set new ground rules for how banks and e-money issuers are allowed to price digital fund transfers. Covered institutions had until July 4, 2026 to comply, and the repricing that followed played out publicly over the next two weeks as banks and wallets announced their new fees one after another.

Per legal analysis of the circular, the core rules are:

• Cost-based pricing: An interbank transfer fee isn’t supposed to be significantly higher than what the same institution charges for an intrabank transfer. The only difference the circular allows is the actual cost of routing the transaction through the InstaPay or PESONet switch — roughly ₱1.50 per transaction.
• No fixed peso cap, but a cost ceiling: The circular doesn’t set one universal fee for every provider. Instead, it ties fees to actual processing cost and requires them to stay below what the same bank would charge you at the teller window.
• Recipients get the full amount: Whatever fee a sender pays, the person receiving the transfer still gets 100% of what was sent — no deduction on the receiving end. This continues a no-receiving-fee rule from an earlier BSP circular.
• Small merchants pay nothing: The same issuance mandates zero-fee digital payments for qualifying small merchants, part of a broader BSP push to get more sari-sari stores and micro-sellers accepting digital payments.

Within days of the July 4 deadline, GCash cut its bank-transfer fee from ₱15 to ₱10, and Maya did the same for InstaPay transfers to other banks, also landing at ₱10 (Maya-to-Maya transfers and PESONet stayed free). On the bank side, BPI made InstaPay and PESONet free across its app, BPI Online, VYBE, BanKo, and BizKo starting July 1; PNB, BDO, Landbank, Metrobank, UnionBank, and Security Bank followed with their own free or reduced fees through July.

The 2026 InstaPay & PESONet Fee Snapshot

This table reflects fees as reported in Philippine news coverage through July 2026, the period when most providers repriced under the circular. Fees are each institution’s own published policy and can change — always check the current rate in your app or bank’s fee schedule before a large transfer.

Bank / E-Wallet	InstaPay Fee	PESONet Fee	Notes
GCash	₱10	—	Cut from ₱15 on July 4; InstaPay cap of ₱50,000 per transaction
Maya (e-wallet)	₱10 to other banks	Free	Cut from ₱15 on July 6; Maya-to-Maya transfers free
BPI	Free	Free	Since July 1; covers BPI app, BPI Online, VYBE, BanKo, BizKo
BDO	Free	Free	Announced July 9
Landbank	Free	Free	Per BSP’s own list of repriced institutions
Metrobank	Free	Free
PNB	Free	Free	Since July 10
UnionBank	Free	Free	Via UnionBank Online
Security Bank	Free	Free
RCBC	Free	₱10	Via the Pulz app; some reporting cites a monthly free-transfer allowance before charges apply
CIMB Bank PH	₱0–₱10	Free
EastWest Bank	₱10	Free
GoTyme Bank	₱0–₱9	Free
UnionDigital Bank	Free	Free
HSBC Philippines	—	Free	PESONet only, per reporting

Sulit Tip: If you regularly send money to the same person — parents, a landlord, a business partner — it’s worth asking which bank they use and opening a free account there yourself, rather than defaulting to whichever e-wallet is already on your phone. A one-time account opening can turn a recurring ₱10 fee into ₱0 for every transfer after that.

Who This Actually Matters For

This is most worth acting on if you move money often and in small amounts: freelancers and online sellers who get paid per project or per order, households that split recurring bills through an e-wallet, or anyone sending a portion of their salary to family every payday. At ₱10 a transfer, the fee itself is small — but multiplied across a dozen or more transfers a month, it adds up to real money that a free bank channel would have kept in your pocket.

It matters less if you only move money a handful of times a year, or if the amounts are large enough that a ₱10 fee is a rounding error. If you’re wiring your 13th month pay to a time deposit once in December, the fee isn’t the part of that decision worth optimizing — where that money should go is the bigger question.

What the New Rules Protect You From

Heads Up: The repricing wasn’t a free-for-all for providers to charge whatever they want. Republic Act No. 11765, the Financial Products and Services Consumer Protection Act, already requires financial providers to follow “responsible pricing” principles, disclose fees and costs clearly and consistently, and give regulators the authority to determine whether a fee is reasonable or excessive. Circular 1238 builds on that foundation specifically for InstaPay and PESONet: a provider can’t simply tack on a large, undisclosed markup because the moratorium lifted. If you ever see a transfer fee that looks out of step with what’s listed above, or a fee quietly deducted from the amount a recipient gets, that’s worth raising with the provider’s customer service or filing a complaint with the BSP Consumer Assistance Mechanism.

Good to Know: The full legal text of Circular No. 1238 and Memorandum No. M-2026-025 is published by the BSP. This guide draws on how Philippine news outlets and legal bulletins reported and interpreted that issuance through July 2026; if you’re making a decision based on the fine print rather than the headline fees, it’s worth checking the BSP’s own circular directly for the current wording.

Worked Scenario: Trimming a Household’s Ber-Months Transfer Costs

Say a household sends money four times a month: two ₱500 rent-splitting transfers to roommates through GCash, one freelance payment received through Maya from a client, and one ₱3,000 aguinaldo-style transfer to parents who bank with Landbank. Under the old free-for-all e-wallet regime, all four transfers cost nothing. Under the post-circular fee structure, the two GCash sends and the Maya receipt-side transfer could each carry a ₱10 fee — ₱30 a month, ₱360 across the Ber months and into the new year, just for a habit nobody changed.

The fix doesn’t require sending less money, just moving it differently. The transfer to parents who already bank with Landbank costs nothing if it goes bank-to-bank instead of through an e-wallet’s InstaPay rail. If the freelance client is willing to pay into a free-transfer bank account instead of a Maya wallet, that leg drops to ₱0 too. Only the peer-to-peer roommate splits, which usually have to go through whatever app is convenient for everyone, are left carrying the ₱10 fee — cutting the monthly cost from ₱30 to ₱20 without anyone sending a single peso less.

Quick Answers

Did InstaPay and PESONet transfers become free in the Philippines in 2026?
It’s mixed. Several major banks — BPI, BDO, Landbank, Metrobank, PNB, UnionBank, and Security Bank among them — made InstaPay and PESONet transfers fully free through 2026. GCash and Maya moved the opposite direction, introducing a ₱10 fee on bank transfers after years of offering them free.

Why did GCash and Maya start charging for bank transfers?
BSP Circular No. 1238 and the memorandum implementing it lifted a long-standing moratorium that had frozen InstaPay and PESONet pricing. Once providers were free to reprice, GCash and Maya both introduced a modest, cost-based fee on transfers out to other banks, while several universal banks used the same opening to drop their older fees to zero.

Is there a fixed cap on what banks and e-wallets can charge for InstaPay?
Not a single universal peso figure. The circular instead requires that an interbank fee stay close to cost and not significantly exceed what the same provider charges for an intrabank transfer — in practice, a premium in the range of the actual network switching cost rather than an arbitrary markup.

Does the person receiving a transfer ever get charged?
No. Whatever fee the sender pays, the recipient is still credited the full amount sent, consistent with the no-receiving-fee principle carried over from earlier BSP rules.

Which bank or e-wallet is cheapest for sending money right now?
As reported through July 2026, BPI, BDO, Landbank, Metrobank, PNB, UnionBank, Security Bank, and UnionDigital Bank advertised fully free InstaPay and PESONet transfers, undercutting GCash and Maya’s ₱10 bank-transfer fee — though terms can change, so confirm the current fee in your own app before a large or recurring transfer.

Also Worth Checking

If some of this money is your year-end bonus, start with our 13th month pay guide on the right order to debt, save, or spend it before moving any of it around. If you’re deciding where to park money you’re not sending right away, our breakdown of digital bank savings accounts worth switching to in 2026 covers the rate side of that decision, and our guide to who the digital banks in the Philippines actually are is a useful primer if any of the names in the table above are unfamiliar. If you’re sending money from abroad rather than between local accounts, our GCash, Wise, Western Union, or bank remittance comparison covers that separate decision. For more of this kind of value-first breakdown, head back to more sulit finds.

Verified Sources Used

Republic Act No. 11765, Financial Products and Services Consumer Protection Act (Senate of the Philippines): Confirmed the “responsible pricing,” fee-disclosure, and regulator fee-reasonableness provisions that underpin the circular’s consumer protections.

GMA News Online: Source for the comprehensive July 2026 list of banks, digital banks, and e-money issuers and their InstaPay/PESONet fee status, and confirmed the circular’s small-merchant zero-fee mandate.

The Philippine Star: Confirmed GCash’s and Maya’s specific fee cuts to ₱10, BPI’s permanent fee waiver, and RCBC’s and Landbank’s conditional fee structures with effective dates.

Manila Bulletin: Confirmed GCash’s reduction of its bank transfer fee to ₱10 effective July 4, 2026.

GMA News Online: Confirmed Maya’s reduction of its InstaPay-to-other-banks fee from ₱15 to ₱10 effective July 6, 2026, and that Maya-to-Maya and PESONet transfers remained free.

Geronimo Law: Legal analysis source for the cost-based pricing requirement, the approximate ₱1.50 switch-cost benchmark, and the July 4, 2026 compliance deadline under Memorandum No. M-2026-025. The full text of BSP Circular No. 1238 itself was not independently retrieved this run; readers relying on the exact regulatory wording should check the BSP’s own published circular.